LETTER: Mzwandile Petros’s silent defiance

It is good news for those who respect the rule of law that the misconceived attempts to make Gauteng police commissioner Lieutenant-General Deliwe de Lange redundant have been abandoned. It is probably also just as well for rumoured frontrunner as successor, former general Mzwandile Petros, that he will not have to face mortifying questions about his silence regarding what actually happened on that fateful night before the Marikana massacre of miners by police in August 2012.

The Farlam Commission did its level best to get answers to its questions about what was actually discussed and decided when police top brass (including Petros) met to plan on the eve of the massacre. Petros ignored the questionnaire sent to him – not a good way to uphold the rule of law. The Sicilian code of “omerta” belongs in criminal gangs, not in the police of an open, accountable and responsive system of governance.

Paul Hoffman, SC Director, Accountability Now
Letter published in bdlive on 2 July 2018.